Intel Arrow Lake might have a surprise up its sleeve: some peppy low-end laptop CPUs

Intel's Arrow Lake processors will have laptop versions that fit not just at the high-end of the spectrum, but also the low-end, with low-power chips that actually sit below Lunar Lake CPUs.

As a quick refresher, Lunar Lake is Intel's mobile range for this year, whereas Arrow Lake will be primarily desktop CPUs that should arrive before the end of 2024.

Arrow Lake will also bring mobile parts, though, and we're told that Arrow Lake HX (top-end) and H processors are coming as well as Arrow Lake U or low-power models, all of which are on track for a CES 2025 reveal according to well-known leaker Bionic_Squash.

In the above tweet noticed by Wccftech, Bionic_Squash pointed out that Arrow Lake U is essentially a "cheaper alternative to LNL [Lunar Lake]" and so will sit at the very bottom of the range of next-gen laptop chips from Intel.

The leaker further explained that Arrow Lake U is basically Meteor Lake U ported to the Intel 3 process, and as such will offer a 10% improvement in terms of performance per watt over Meteor Lake U (in multi-threaded tasks).

That's a relatively modest uptick, but a decent step forward nonetheless and one well worth having. Arrow Lake U could help usher in some affordable thin-and-light notebooks with a decent amount of added pep, then, with all the usual skepticism around rumors taken into account.

More eyes will definitely be on Arrow Lake for the desktop than these low-end or high-end mobile processors, mind you.

With AMD's Ryzen 8000 or 9000 desktop CPUs based on Zen 5 rumored to debut around the middle of the year, Intel is set to see its Raptor Lake Refresh processors which are currently on the table - and still will be at the point - fall rather hopelessly behind Team Red.

In other words, Intel really needs to get Arrow Lake desktop out as quickly as possible afterwards, if we assume the rumors are right about Zen 5 turning up maybe around the middle of 2024, that is.

The good news on the Intel front is that there are at least some hints that Arrow Lake may arrive in a more timely manner than the very end of the year, as the processors have been spotted having support added in CPU-Z. Given the typical timescale of that happening with past generations of Intel chips, this gives us hope that maybe Arrow Lake desktop could arrive in Q3 rather than Q4 - or perhaps early in the fourth quarter at any rate.

Those chips will then be followed by Arrow Lake laptop silicon at CES 2025 if this latest rumor pans out.